from Hacker News

Casper Sleep S-1

by jonknee on 1/10/20, 6:46 PM with 158 comments

• by commoner on 1/11/20, 1:12 AM

  Casper sued a mattress review site, Sleepopolis, for writing negative reviews of their products. Casper then settled the lawsuit by taking over Sleepopolis. The site now posts only positive reviews of Casper's mattresses.

  https://www.fastcompany.com/3065928/sleepopolis-casper-blogg...

  I would take any reviews of Casper's products with a grain of salt.

• by skellera on 1/11/20, 12:52 AM

  Just wanted to say that working with Casper customer service was one of the worst experiences I’ve ever had.

  I bought their top of the line hybrid mattress then a few weeks later they had a sale which could be used on any of their products if you bought a mattress. We really wanted the lamps so we contacted customer service to see if it was possible to get the discount since we just bought the mattress. The girl was extremely rude making it seem like I was wasting her time. She told me that there was no way to add anything to an existing order so I couldn’t do it. I asked if I had to return the mattress and reorder it to get the lamps and she said yes that’s what I would have to do but no I was out of luck because they took too long to respond to me (called after they didn’t respond to any of my messages) so the promotion was over. The whole time she just seemed annoyed that I even tried to ask.

  Sorry I spent $2000 on a mattress and wanted to spend more on another product. I just returned it and got a Novosbed for half the price and it was way better so I’m pretty glad it turned out that way. Keep in mind that Casper can’t sell a return so they have to donate it. The whole return was a mess to deal with as well. Glad they lost money on the return even if they get to write some of the donation off.

  Guess my point is that I don’t think Casper treats their customers well. I wouldn’t touch them as an investment. I personally think they’re just cashing out at this point.

• by tempsy on 1/10/20, 7:12 PM

  I haven't been in the market for a mattress for awhile now but went on Casper's website and was shocked to see the price for a Queen is now $1095.

  I didn't remember it being that high, and checked Wayback and sure enough it was $850 in 2015, and $950 in 2017.

  Given how many copycats are out there, many selling for much less, can someone help me understand how Casper gets away with selling a $1095 mattress + tax to a majority millennial crowd, who are supposedly cash strapped, and doing so successfully?

• by mundo on 1/10/20, 7:52 PM

  I bought a latex mattress several years ago, and will never buy another mattress. (Literally, they last 50+ years) Feels great, available in a range of firmness, no weird smells, never deforms, doesn't get hot, and naturally insect/mold resistant. I think I paid 1300 USD for a king size.

  I know that's only tangentially relevant to the topic at hand, I'm just mentioning this since I had trouble finding much info on them. Latex is not promoted or advertised much, since they have very low markup compared to other mattresses; the store would much rather sell you a "hybrid" (usually 1/2 latex and 1/2 memory foam). But if you want to pay 2x as much to get something that lasts 4x as long, what you want is simple, boring, 100% natural latex.

• by umeshunni on 1/11/20, 12:47 AM

  For the last 9 months of 2019 (all in USD)

  Revenue - 312M COGS - 157M Sales & Marketing - 113M General & Administrative - 106M

  Net profit (loss) - (67M)

  First thought: How on earth are they spending $11M/month on G&A expenses?

  On further reading -

  Casper Labs, our over 25,000 square foot advanced research facility in San Francisco.

  Ah, ok then...

  Second thought: Why isn't R&D broken out as a separate line item?

• by 0zymandias on 1/11/20, 12:22 AM

  Many engineers would benefit from spending a year in sales and a year in marketing.

  There is a whole other way to look at products like this that is often missed if you haven’t done the time.

• by codingslave on 1/11/20, 12:56 AM

  The trick is that there are a bunch of mattress companies on Amazon selling really cheap foam mattresses (~200$) that are basically the same as Casper. But Casper jammed a ton of money into branding and marketing, so probably has great margins on their products. Foam mattresses as a product are getting extremely cheap and the quality is really not bad. I have a cheap one and honestly like sleeping on it more than 1200$ spring bed I had.

• by xivzgrev on 1/11/20, 1:28 AM

  Great business story. They quickly capitalized on a trend (tuft and needle started 2 years before), pumped it up with great marketing and distribution, and now are making their exit before a recession.

  Would. Not. Buy.

• by opportune on 1/10/20, 7:26 PM

  Interesting that they want to explore medical devices, “sleep services”, and sleep supplements. Guess they are marketing themselves as the Amazon of sleep? Because right now all I know about them is that they sell overpriced mattresses

• by tesmar2 on 1/11/20, 6:41 AM

  We tried the memory-foam-in-a-box mattresses and they were not good (leesa - I suspect Casper is similar.). We just ordered and received a latex mattress from Arizona (https://www.mattresses.net) and it's so much better. I don't work for or have any affiliation with them, I just hope this helps someone else.

• by root_axis on 1/10/20, 7:46 PM

  Just want to shout out to the Casper Glow Lights, those things are awesome. Interesting to see a mattress company expand into other cool products.

• by someonehere on 1/11/20, 6:41 AM

  Casper’s return policy is wasteful.

  100 nights or your money back. After two days we didn’t like the mattress. Emailed support and told them we weren’t happy with it. The next day 1800 Junk truck came out and trashed the mattress. So essentially their returned mattresses go into the landfill and become waste if you’re not happy with it.

• by samcampbell on 1/10/20, 7:22 PM

  Disaggregated Revenue Data (Nine months ended September 30) Direct to Consumer: 2018- $239M; 2019- $259M [13% YoY growth]

  Wholesale: 2018- $31M; 2019- $54M [75% YoY growth] "20.3% year-over-year net revenue growth for the nine months ended September 30, 2019"

  "We have also expanded our gross margin from 42.8% in 2016 to 44.1% in 2018 and to 50.7% for the three months ended September 30, 2019"

• by 0xADEADBEE on 1/11/20, 4:36 AM

  A genuinely enjoyable long-form post I read a while back involved Casper [0]. Not sure how germane it is but perhaps someone will enjoy it.

  [0] - https://www.fastcompany.com/3065928/sleepopolis-casper-blogg...

• by seldonnn on 1/10/20, 11:35 PM

  It’s a tech company guys

• by xwdv on 1/11/20, 3:23 AM

  The product I like from Casper isn’t their mattress – It’s their lights. They’re god damn incredible, I sleep peacefully thanks to those. They should just focus on stuff like that.

• by cm2012 on 1/11/20, 12:40 AM

  They could be making better Facebook ads to get that acquisition cost down. The text on the image for a lot of their ads is way too small!

  https://mobile.twitter.com/kevinwlordbarry/status/1215786907...

• by jelliclesfarm on 1/11/20, 1:07 AM

  I bought a Casper off shelf two days ago. It was the only one on the shelf in Target and it was 9.45 PM. It was pricier than I had expected and didn’t understand why it was so expensive. But I needed one pronto and it wasn’t worth my time to go looking for something else that late at night.

  But I did wonder why it was so expensive..

• by raverbashing on 1/11/20, 8:27 AM

  I think this is who put it more succinctly:

  "Casper is a very inefficient wealth transfer from venture capitalists to prestige podcast makers"

  https://twitter.com/kevinroose/status/1215734138981928960

• by sfblah on 1/10/20, 7:58 PM

  When I was 23 and doing startups full time, I slept on a hardwood floor with just a blanket and a pillow. Helped me to get up in the morning and do work, did nothing bad for my body as far as I can tell.

• by sb057 on 1/11/20, 5:03 AM

  Unsolicited advice: buy the cheapest mattress (that doesn't squeal) that you can find and slap a $50 memory foam topper on top of it. That maxes out my comfort level.

• by b0tch7 on 1/11/20, 2:56 AM

  I did an insane amount of research when buying my mattress a couple years back, there are _so_ many bed-in-a-box companies now. Decided on Helix Sleep because they offer a level of customisation, and their customer support is rated incredibly highly (which I decided very important if you're going to buy a mattress without trying it).

  I love my Helix so much so that I convinced my parents to buy one. They didn't love theirs and sure enough, customer service was hassle-free with the return. So my n=2 recommendation: Helix is the way to go

  That said those Glow Lights do seem pretty awesome

• by rtny4821 on 1/11/20, 4:53 AM

  Casper should buy calm.com

• by Ohn0 on 1/10/20, 7:13 PM

  I'm so tired of this